


Three of a Kind

by bansheenanigans



Series: 1001 Bottles of Realm Reborn Red [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Found Family Tropes, Multi, Multiple WOL - Freeform, Other, Platonic Relationships, irresponsible use of black magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:22:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22345543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bansheenanigans/pseuds/bansheenanigans
Summary: Khiiral Lumoira, M'oe Shi, and Yldegarde Kolfrid are a matching set, better known as three mages in a trench coat who really, rather, didn't expect to be Warriors of Light.
Series: 1001 Bottles of Realm Reborn Red [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608463
Kudos: 2





	1. Soup

**Author's Note:**

> These are literally all just oc's of mine and my friends, so if you did stick around to read, I adore you.

“So I’ll just come out and say it because somebody,” M’oe assesses her with possibly the closest to a frown she’s ever seen on his face, “isn’t going to address the elephant in the room.”

“There’s an elephant? Why, I had no idea.” She grins, and shrugs her shoulders, taking another spoonful of her antelope stew. Maybe next time she would think to add a bit more paprika…

“Your eye!” M’oe exerts, waving his spoon at her over their small table. 

“My eye is an elephant. Fascinating.” 

“Your eye is not- you spend too much time with Lyrit.” Khiiral sighs at her, catching the waggle of her eyebrows. 

“Do any of us Truly spend Enough time with Lyrit, honestly? I mean, look at the man, does he not need a tad bit of supervision from time to time? A comforting presence or two?”  
The silence is awkward and a little bit damning. 

“Okay, okay, I get the point,” she sets her spoon down with a sigh, steepling her fingers under her chin with both elbows down on the table, “My eye is a problem?”

“It’s not a problem, it’s purple.” M’oe responds, setting his spoon down instead of waving it about like an improvised weapon. 

“I think it trends more towards a deep wine, but alright. It’s purple. And?” Maybe she’s just being a bit stubborn now, a little unnecessary. But that much is in her blood, at least, a persistent need to avoid worrying her boys overmuch in their times apart. 

“It used to be blue.” Khiiral finally pipes back in, having consumed all of his stew and hungrily eyeing the breadbasket in the table’s center. She slides it to him with one hand before returning to her steepled position. And of course, he would know. He met her when her eyes were still mismatched, but less noticeable. A pale blue and a sea glass green, barely perceivable. 

“It did. And now it’s not,” she sighs, and taps a nail on her cheek below the offending eye, “It’s a recent enough development, I’ll admit.” 

“What happened to you?,” M’oe puts the words as delicately as he can, which for him she assumes must take considerable effort. Usually he wouldn’t beat around the bush so much, “we’re not angry, but it’s a pretty significant development!” 

She pauses, and her lower lip works it’s way between her teeth, nervously considering her answers. If she lied, she’d regret it immensely, and besides, they’d never let her live it down, they’d know straight away. 

“I...got a little reckless with my black magic studies, after everything we saw in the Crystal Tower. But it’s fine now. I’m fine now.” 

Both of them stare at her over the table with a mixture of concern and confusion. 

“A little reckless?” Khiiral echoes, and she knows he’s thinking of what the Conjurer’s guild will think if they find out. If they’ll finally decide she’s not worth the risk after all. If he will have to see her led off in cuffs or executed for her perceived crimes. 

She...nods, and closes her eyes, steadying herself. 

“I was hitting a bit of a road block, and I assumed I could power through it to figure out the next bit of mastery. I was correct, but apparently I earned a bit of a souvenir. I imagine I’m lucky it still functions? It is a bit foggy, but...Could have lost a whole eye to the void, and wouldn’t that have been a mess.” 

She opens her eyes, and manages a small smile. 

“You know what they say, you look into the void, the void looks back.” 

Neither seem to know quite what to say to that, but the blooming of worry across both their faces causes her shoulders to sag, and she hunches further into her chair. 

“I’ve consulted with the thaumaturge guild and with Lalai, Kazagg, Dozol, Do...as well as a fair few discreet arcanists. They all agree that I should be fine. A little more careful, perhaps, but fine.” She offers it as a balm, but it feels much more like a plea. Do not be angry with me, she begs. I know much better now. I won’t do it again. I would never do anything to hurt you by hurting myself. 

“...do you think that's why all those other black mages had the whole eyepatch deal going? I always found that a little weird.” Khiiral manages with a smile, and she’s so grateful for it she could throw herself over the table and kiss him right on the forehead. 

“I just assumed they were being edgy. Y’know, like all black mages.” M’oe offers back with a smile, and she does scoot her bowl to the side before leaning over the table and wrapping her arms around her boys. 

“Rude. I am perfectly soft-edged!,” She protests, but they pull her in tighter to that hug, and she feels her knee send her stew flying, splattering against the floor of her borrowed quarters in the Fortemps manor. She yells, and tries to get loose to handle it, but they hold fast, “No no no, it’ll make a mess!”

“It’s your mess, so it’s our mess, you big edgy nerd!” Khiiral laughs, and tugs on one of her ears with a grin when she fixes him with a pout. 

“But what a waste of a good stew!” M’oe exhales, and plants a kiss on her cheek as she squirms. 

“You’re the worst!” She’s almost breathless as she cackles her words, but her struggle is just for show now. She’s perfectly content right where she is, with her boys, and their mess, and their stubborn need to keep her reasonable.


	2. Listening Softly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yldegarde ran off after the events of the Vault, leaving her other halves to pick up the pieces. She's absolutely not surprised when her homecoming is less than perfect, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read the events after the Vault for Ylde, they're in another work in the series, unfortunately.

“Khiiral?” She’s not sure when her voice turned so hoarse, constantly. It was ragged from tears and rough from disuse, maybe. She’d only been home for a few days, maybe a little more. Brought back bruised and dirty from her escape to Sohm Al, to Zenith. Over a week since Haurchefant had... 

She’d run away, and it was only once she came back that she knew she had to make some things right again. Something was...wrong. Something felt so wrong in their home, and it was clear that it was very much her fault. She left. Khiiral was alone. Well. He had M’oe, but M’oe wasn’t...she had left, was the point. She left, and she left him alone, and he was angry with her and that was all too fair. That it was fair didn’t make it any easier. 

So when she finally gathers the courage, the heart, she raps softly on the door, calls his name. She knows he’s home, had it confirmed a few times over. It’s worse when there’s no answer then, not even a ‘go away’ from her dearest, oldest friend. 

But she doesn’t leave. She can’t. She slides down the door to sit, back to the wood, and she talks. It’s what she’s good at, sometimes, even if it meanders and turns lecture. She talks. She has to.   
“I should never have...I should never have asked that of you. I know better. We both know he...there was nothing. Nothing we could have done.”  
Quiet, but a rustling, a soft thump against the door’s other side. 

“And I shouldn’t have run away. I should have stayed and told you this right away, and I’m so...I’m so sorry, Khiiral. I asked something so unfair of you and then I ran, and I should have stayed. We both experienced that loss. It was selfish of me to think I could just run away and leave you to feel it alone.” 

She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugs them in tight. 

“I was hurt, and scared, and...it doesn’t matter. M’oe told me what you were trying to do, healing from your own aether, your own _life_ when I wasn’t...when I wasn’t able to see. And I never want to put you in that sort of position, Khiiral, I just don’t. I know what you did all those years, I know how you started, I know what it takes out of you, and I...I refuse to let my family hurt themselves like that. I can’t bear it, do you hear me?” 

She’s also very not sure when she started crying, but she has, tears dripping on the wooden floor and staining her dress a darker gray where they splatter. She’s been doing that a lot these days, crying. Even when she knows it makes people uncomfortable, she can’t quite seem to stop the tears when they decide to arrive. 

“I couldn’t bear it if I lost you too. You’re family, Khiiral...better and closer than blood, because we had the choice, and we chose to be family. You’re my dearest friend and my brother, and I’m so sorry. Please come out. Please just...talk to me. I know I don’t deserve it. But, please.” 

She sniffs, rubs at the tears on her cheeks with a palm roughly. She doesn’t know if he’s listening. If he hears her at all, or if he’s going to come out. But she means every word, more than perhaps she’s ever been upfront with anything. She means it. And she’ll see it through. So she waits.


	3. A Few Too Many Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh this is. So short.

“Oh, you just...you remind me of my brother, sometimes.” She laughs this, waving a hand off. It’s still caked in flour, and the dust that falls is almost like snow on the countertop. 

“Your br- you have a brother?” Khiiral blinks back at her, his pilfered acorn cookie juggling back and forth between hands as it cools.

“I used to. We were twins, so I suppose, if you wanted to imagine I was a man, and my eye was still blue, then... you’d essentially have Valerian. At least, I think. I haven’t seen him since we were 13.” She shrugs, and snags her rolling pan from where it has wandered off to, set to roll out her pie crust as she talks. 

“Why so long? I thought you didn’t leave home until you were like, 18.” M’oe pipes up from his comfortable spot on a clean bit of the counter, content with his cup of mulled tea. A moment’s consideration turns his expression borderline solemn, and somewhat abashed, “He’s not dead, is he, because if he is, I am so sorry-“

“I mean, I suppose I wouldn’t know, but I hope he isn’t? No, we just... 13 was when papa came to get him, and I couldn’t find him when I left home to convince him to come with, so I haven’t seen him. I’m sure I would know him if I saw him though.” The pie should have a lattice top, she thinks, something complicated. It always helps to talk when she has something to do with her hands, and her boys always linger when she’s cooking. One would think they’d never been fed, and at certain points of their lives, that would be true, so she doesn’t mind when they steal away with half of her work. She’s learned to triple her recipes in order to feed the company when it is her turn to do so. 

“How do I remind you of...Valin, did you say?” Khiiral cocks his head at her, and she can see Twig mimic the gesture from his shoulder. 

“Valerian. And I don’t know, I suppose...,” one hand strays to her hip as she thinks, and the other to her chin, surely leaving flour prints in both places, “Well, you’re kind, there’s that. Your sense of humor is abominable, for another. And you’re just a rotten liar. Leri was a terrible liar, I always had to cover for him.” 

“You are a really bad liar.” M’oe nods sagely, having dismounted from the counter with a strange sort of grace to snatch a handful of seasoned apple slices from her bowl. He deftly avoids the wooden spoon she tries to smack his hand away with, and ducks to avoid the dish towel lobbed after him with a laugh. 

“Hey, hey now!” Khiiral puts his hands up in a defensive gesture, but the smile remains, cheery and relaxed. Twig snatches the acorn cookie from his fingers at the first opportunity. He doesn’t seem to notice, or at the very least, mind. 

“Mm, when Leri and I were 13, we knew that papa was going to come get him, because that’s just. How it was done. The boys protect the forest. We keep the traditions. But Leri didn’t want to go, he was a sweet boy, and he didn’t like hunting or fighting, so he asked me, Ylde, can’t we trick them?,” she finishes laying her crust with a smile, before sugaring it lightly, “I was the mischievous one, of course, and if Leri wanted me to be clever, well. I would be so clever. So we trussed ourselves up to be identical as you please, and when papa came, we had to make him guess which was his son and which was his daughter.”

“Did he guess right?” M’oe asks from behind her, and she can hear him swinging his feet from the counter again.

“He did, if only because Leri couldn’t keep quiet. He almost gave up, but at the last second, Leri said my name by accident, and the moment he was asked which one he was, he tried to hard to change the subject that he just ended up spilling the beans altogether. Oh, and mama and papa were so angry...I only met my father once, and I just remember him being so mad at me for trying to trick him and keep Leri. Wasn’t a stellar first impression, I know.”

“You don’t really make those.” The grin that accompanies the statement is not even remotely dimmed by the withering frown she sends Khiiral’s way. 

“I change my mind, you’re so mean.” She sighs dramatically, flinging a hand over her forehead. “I choose such mean friends!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the free company has a wholesome family dinner.

“It’s not that I’m judging your choices, of course!,” comes the sweet voice, unbidden from the other side of the counter, “but you do always choose the only people who have no idea how to cook to help you, and I was just wondering if you wanted more help, with something so...complicated.“ 

Ylde smiles at the petite au ra before her, Luce’s wide and worried golden eyes transfixed on M’oe’s attempts at fancy knife tricks that mostly seemed to result in vegetables hitting the floor. Or nearly hitting, caught barely by Khiiral’s quick hands. The poor man had been on catcher’s duty rather than rinsing for a few minutes now, but the fondness in his apple-green eyes was clear evidence he didn’t totally mind. And anyway, the debris was becoming less of a problem as M’oe managed to adapt his rapier technique to a shorter implement. She assumes that the distance was the thing throwing him, really, not as much knife to work with, but then again, it was hardly her area of expertise. 

“That’s really lovely, Lu, but I think we couldn’t even manage to fit another person back here, and I’d hate to stress you out overmuch.” 

“You are already stressing me out.” The golden and ivory girl all but hisses through a gritted smile, but throws up her hands in time with an onion neatly cleaving in two as M’oe finally finds a reasonable rhythm to his toss and chop. 

“I promise you, this will not be like the last time, Luce.” 

“The last time being the time you flambéd a lamb shank with void fire and we all had weird dreams for the next three days, or the last time when Khiiral used a sword to-“ 

“I don’t know proper sword form for that and I am still very, very sorry.” Khiiral chimes in, letting the tomato he was fielding splatter on the floor. He lets out a soft grumble before grabbing a towel to clean it up.

“You don’t know sword form at all.” Is the ghost of a comment from around the corner, where Lyrit looks amused as he lounges regally across a cushion.

“You may have provided some of the ingredients, but you weren’t invited to the pre-dinner show,” Ylde chastises, but the eye roll she gets in return clearly communicates ‘as if I’d miss this’, and she gives up, “It’s not a dinner show. I didn’t invite any of you, you’re supposed to be downstairs where there are plenty of snacks and wine and other things to do-“ 

“But the kitchen is in peril!” Luce all but weeps, and Lyrit echoes it with a laugh. Ylde frowns at both of them. 

“I feel like you’re exaggerating a little bit.”

“No, we did summon a voidsent in here last month when we were testing out the translation of that tome from Saint Mocianne’s, we had to reshelve every book in the library and clear viscous goop from the ale tap! They have a point.” M’oe finally ceases his slicing to pop up on a bit of clear counter space, waggling his fingers at their audience. There are bits of onion peel in his hair and a smear of clove oil across one cheek. 

“Whose side are you on, oe?” Khiiral snorts before ruffling his husband’s hair and dislodging minor debris. 

Ylde groans, and puts down her mixing bowl to level Lyrit with a dead-eyed stare. The knight meets her impassively, for a moment, before another eyeroll accompanied the languid roll of his torso to sit up, stand, and take a dramatic bow.

“Mistress Kolfrid, the kitchen is yours this evening.” He soothes in a sort of gentle melody, as he is wont, and holds a hand out for Luce.

“But my dish towels-“ Luce sighs as she takes the hand given, casting a forlorn look at the kitchen. Ylde makes a point before they cross the corner to pick up Luce’s dish towels and place them delicately on a barstool, out of range of any potential fire hazards. 

“That means you too, Okko.” Ylde croons towards the reading nook, where a Squeak of surprise among with the small shuffle of pillows reveals the Hyuran scholar herself, red-faced and looking abashed. 

“But I’m in the middle of this chapter!” Is the argument issued from the brunette, arm wrapped tightly around a stuffed goblin.

“Then you may stay, but no trying to help. I see you summon one fairy, nudge one dish, and I will have Lyrit come back and sling you over his shoulder like a sack of popotoes.” She replies firmly, but with affectionate levity. She doesn’t mind Okko staying, doesn’t mind so long as she continues to unhindered supervise her boys in their desecration of most holy and well-decorated sacred ground in the pursuit of a large and quite detailed dinner menu. 

“...Promise?” The eyebrow raise under heavy bangs is enough to make Khiiral guffaw loudly from behind the counter. 

“Okko Nomiyaki, I’m warning you-“

Okko gamely settles back into her reading nook with a satisfied harrumph, nose returned to her salacious romance novel stuffed into the jacket of a primer on aetherytes.   
Khiiral has wisely returned to rinsing and sorting through herbs, scrutinizing them each with impunity before placing the winning pieces on her cutting board. M’oe’s theatrical display all but ended, he shifts instead to climbing onto the pantry shelf to grab another of Lyrit’s unending Realm Red, popping the cork with his teeth and an audible thunk as his feet reach ground yet again. 

“This recipe doesn’t call for wine, dear.” 

“Does it have to?” He chimes in response, beaming back up at her as he fills a glass to hand off to Khiiral. 

“I suppose we would be doing everyone a favor if we demolished another bottle. And if I add it to the sauce...,” she holds out a hand expecting the bottle and receiving a wine glass, “oh, we’re just drinking it? I thought we were trying to be responsible and not cause another house fire.”

“Plausible deniability!” Is his only explanation, which is good enough for Ylde, really. 

“Why do you want us as assistants if we have actual culinarians who would be happy to help you make this anyway?” Khiiral drawls and reaches out to tuck a sprig of laurel behind her ear, and another behind M’oe’s. 

“Well, one, it’s my recipe. I choose who can help and who can’t, and I choose you,” she smiles wide at him, “I’d entrust it to no others, at least not yet.”

“But why-“

“It’s a family recipe, and it’s meant to stay in families. Conveniently, I have you! My family.”

The sad humph from the reading nook distracts her from the soft looks on Khiiral and M’oe’s faces to peer over at Okko’s boots sticking out from the ledge. Ylde laughs softly before waving her wooden spoon in a vague heart shape in the air, illustrating her point. 

“The company is my family, but you two came first, so it only makes sense that you’re first. I want to make it how you would make it, and then I’ll teach Luce and Gorikuu and Okko, the others, and see how they’d make it.” 

“What do you mean, how they’d make it? It’s a basic recipe, isn’t it? If we follow the recipe it’ll always be the same as the first time you made it for us.” Khiiral’s statement has logic, and he looks perplexed, mussing up his organized piles of herbs and vegetables to resort them. 

“Maybe if we served it in the Bismarck it would be standardized. But we aren’t. Family recipes evolve with the family! So, maybe you prefer something sweet, while I prefer salty. Even if I like it saltier, having it the way you’d make it would make me feel...like I was with you, even if we’re apart. Does that make sense? It’s the same basic form, but if everyone changes something slightly to their tastes, then it becomes...ours, when it’s all together.” 

M’oe looks delighted, deep in thought, before snatching up a handful of seasoning jars from the cabinet and tentatively putting them on the counter. 

“So, can I..?” He looks uncertain, tail lashing softly, before she nods and he beams back. “It might be kind of smoky?” 

“I think that would be perfectly you.” 

“I think it would be better if it didn’t have oranges in the dessert.” Khiiral offers quietly, and startles when both sets of eyes zero in on him, “I don’t like them anymore. Too many on the sea.”

As if a floodgate has suddenly been opened, the considered changes fly forward. Some denied, some amended, and quite a few implemented as they continue to shuffle around the kitchen, preparing the three courses of the dinner menu. The hour ticks away, and the kitchen fills with a sort of glorious cloud and soft conversation, much louder laughter. Laurel and saffron and smoky hot pepper in a gently bubbling raptor stew, freshly baked bread filled with garlic and paprika which Khiiral braids himself and tops with sea salt, a sweet sort of crepe stuffed with candied sun lemon peel and freshly whipped sweet cream, a syrup of kukuru. A lazily yet expertly told story of dragoon training hijinks meets a boisterous hooting and laughing, the clink of glasses. A folk story from a far off land hitting an undercurrent of relief and joy. Dramatic retellings of one scar or another.

By the time dinner is on the table, they’re famished and a little tipsy, but beaming at the rest of the company assembled. It was...rare enough, to have everyone gone. Rarer still to have any peace or certainty they could finish a meal together. Little by little they shuffle in, squeezing around tables and curling into couch cushions with their pilfered plates. The wine pours itself, essentially, and with Crices at the piano, the laughter and conversation pours even easier. As well predicted, every individual with a culinary lean under their belt has a suggestion or two for their version, once the plot is unveiled. Future dinners are planned, loosely, accounting for world-shattering tragedies and bizarre adventuring whims. 

And Ylde sits back solid on the couch, arms hiked up to wrap around both Khiiral and M’oe’s shoulders, as they doze off surrounded by friends. Khiiral snores lightly, Twig all but nesting in the curve of his neck, while M’oe seems determined to cover as much surface area with his body as possible, legs thrown over them both and arms wild flung and awkwardly bent, his tail wrapped around Khiiral’s wrist. 

Dishes could always wait for tomorrow. 

Or be hoisted off onto those who didn’t cook, if one was enough of an ass.


	5. Cut Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of respite after the liberation of Doma, before returning to Ala Mhigo, catches the Threefold Warriors of Light off guard.

“It’s weird, right?” Khiiral asks in that strange tone, the one that always sounds less like a question and more a confirmation. It’s weird, right? It’s weird to be so close to home and yet so far? He knows it’s weird, she can say so without any complaint. He won’t mind, he’s opening the door for her. Othard is such a large place, after all. As they traversed Doma, visited the Steppe, sashayed across the Ruby Sea and beneath it, it almost never occurred to her to think of it. To open that door and peer inside, consider how it felt.   
To remember that just south, just so far and so close, there it was.

“What’s weird?” M’oe pokes his head up from the tall grass of their little hiding place, their sanctuary of the moment. They’d found the place chock full of cherry blossoms and still foggy waters and quiet, and the moment was kind. They had to leave soon, sail back to Kugane, and to Eorzea. To finish what they’d started in Ala Mhigo. He’d been restless since they left the castle, and she didn’t blame him. They were so, so close…He could go home, have a home that was free, for once, finally. He could have what he wanted for so long. 

Khiiral doesn’t really say anything, just shrugs at her, and Ylde returns the favor. M’oe didn’t know a lot of her past, and it had been simple enough to keep it that way for a while. Khiiral never told her secrets to anyone, not even his own love. And she found that...she didn’t like to dim the sunshine. But it was foolish, now, here. The ground sang of home. 

“It’s...strange to be in Othard. On the soil here. That’s all.”

“Strange to be on the soil...? I don’t think I understand.” The cock of his head and the ear wiggle suggests he does have an idea, but he leaves the space open. Her damnable boys and their insight. But he doesn’t know entirely, at least, that isn’t what his expression says, and he’s not nearly as good as falsifying one as some. More of his heart was ever on his sleeve as it was safe in his chest. 

“I was born here. Well... Over and to the south, closer to Dalmasca. But I was born there. I grew up there. I haven’t been this close to home in years. Since right before the Calamity, really.” She eyes Khiiral, curious. Her friend simply nods, arms crossed behind his head as he lounges back against the trunk of a tree. His lance is stabbed into the ground near him, and his eyes are closed, peaceful. It all says that he will let her talk, let her explain, even though he is the better storyteller. Both betrayal and gift in one vision. 

“Wait, really? Why didn’t I know that? You’d think it would have come up on the voyage here!” M’oe almost...pouts, and it’s the funniest sight, such a solid fellow with such a childish expression. He never fails to make her laugh, even in the darkest circumstances, even unintentionally, that cat. 

“Oh, I don’t know. We had very different priorities on the way here, as we do on the way out. It’s not like I never said I was from the Golmore before, M’oe, and you can read a map.” There’s a map in most rooms of their home, in fact, usually choked with pins or notes or scribblings. Their company of adventurers did get around, quite a bit...and it was simply easier to have maps available throughout, in case someone was keen on planning an excursion. The map in her own quarters had a pin in the Golmore, though the map was often covered in half-finished note apges and observations of creatures. 

“Should we…should we go? Visit? Since we’re so close? It wouldn’t take long, would it?” He seems to ponder the idea with an earnestness, combatting for the moment the idea that they were soon to be departing to free his own nation. A heart much too kind.

“Certainly not right now! And, really…not ever, I suppose. We’d die if we did. I’m not welcome, and you definitely aren’t allowed in," She sighs, “And...anyway, it wouldn’t be like I could show you exactly where I grew up. It doesn’t exist anymore. Your home still does. Priorities, remember?” 

It’s a damnably awkward silence that follows, ripe with unspoken question, as Khiiral shuffles nervously.

“Did you have to say it like that?”

“You know I wish I didn’t,” she frowns at her oldest friend, before casting a gentle, tired look at his husband, her dearest spitfire, looking all the more like a kicked kitten.

“I...visiting would be lovely, and I wish I could repay the favor you give so freely when we’re in Ala Mhigo, share it all as we go, breathe it to life and lustrous color. But...unfortunately the village of Kol is gone. It’s been gone for a good seven years now, and I would rather not tour it’s remains.” 

“Gone?” Her stalwart Miqo’te friend leans in, curiosity swishing his tail wildly amongst the reeds. The sound is akin to a thwack, but he seems unbothered by it. 

She shrugs, and tilts her head back towards the valley, the Glittering Basin and its mess of abandoned Magitek and imperial technology, left to decay and rust in the water, the soil, surrounded by beasts and ruined earth. 

“Kol used to be on the edge of the Golmore, closest to Dalmasca. The grass wasn’t greener, but the sands were golden, and that was enough that most Viera born in Kol would leave for Dalmasa, choosing exile for freedom over tradition. As it goes, though, Dalmasca fell under Garlean occupation the year or so after my siblings and I were born.” 

She’s taken the lacing out of one side of her skirt and started threading it through her fingers in a strange game of cat’s cradle, contemplating it as she talks so she doesn’t have to look anywhere else.

“Garlemald will never take nor hold the Golmore- this is true. They can’t win when we are in our forests. it’s just...it is our gift, payment in service of our Green. But Kol was close to the edge, and smaller, less prepared, and when they tried, they...they did have some small victories. My mother and my sister both died when I was much too young, caught the ire of some young soldier. Sure, the soldier died too, but what does that really matter in the end? It didn’t to Leri and I. Justice is cold comfort when you’re a child, as you know.”

M’oe’s tail has stilled, and his ears press against his head in a clear signal of his concern. His knowing, how this story will go. She doesn’t really have to tell it. He’s lived a near enough version, they’ve seen a near version being in Doma. But she’s started, so she sits against her tree trunk and watches her cherry blossoms fall, winds her ribbon in her hands, and she talks.  
Her vision is reddening, and she takes in a deep breath at the hand on her knee, Khiiral’s calming presence. The smoke she blows out dissipates into the fog and her tongue tastes of ash.   
“Magitek can rot a landscape, if it’s left leaking and rusting. We see that here. In Doma, in Gyr Abania, at home. Home, it corrupted the Mist in the forests. The fauna stayed away, and what did stray near was strange, hungry and vicious, just as the flora. The harvest became harder and harder. Keeping it viable became a losing battle. And there was nothing to be done, because nobody knew how to cure it. We had kept the forest hale for so long, but this was...”

A knot, she picks it out with deft fingers, untangles it into a long line, undoing all her work. 

“Which is...why I left. I wanted to find the cure, the answers, I wanted to to fix it, without understanding what it was yet. Accepted exile in exchange for the chance. But I ran into trouble, and more trouble, and the worst sort of trouble and...I suppose, about a few months after Khiiral and I met, I found out that Kol was gone, from a girl I recognized in a tavern. The Rava had found a way to staunch the decay, to keep it from infecting the rest, but Kol…wasn’t saved in time. There was nothing left to save. ” 

M’oe looks so, so sadly at her, wide eyes filled with anger and all too familiar sorrow, before he attempts to crush her into a hug. Attempt, as her position doesn’t make it quite easy, and he ends up partially flung across her lap. His unnervingly sturdy arms crush her waist well enough. 

“But, ah…anyway,” She shuffles nervously, wraps her arms around M’oe’s shoulders before holding out a hand to Khiiral, who takes it with an eyeroll and a smile to be pulled into the untidy pile, “I can’t go home, and we can’t visit, but that’s okay, you know? I found a new one. I found a new life, a new calling, new family that I love, and…new causes to fight for. And I still get to ruin a Garlean’s day on a regular basis! It all works out!” 

“You are…terrible at coming up with the bright side of tragedy, you know that?” She hears the laughing, muffled statement from her ribs. M’oe, squeezing ever tighter. 

“And you’re turning into a big softie. Who are you? Where is the Yldegarde that regularly almost catches me on fire for dumb jokes?” Khiiral’s heinous guffaw into her ear is both jarring and welcome.

“There’s a reason I’m not the mouthpiece in our arrangement!” She interjects with a squawk of outrage. 

“Oh Twelve forbid, you could have fooled me.“

“Don’t be an ass!”

“He can’t help it, he has to make up for lack of one.”

“I am wounded, sir, wounded, by my own husband-"


	6. Cut Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation in Doma, before returning for the liberation of Ala Mhigo.

“It’s weird, right?” Khiiral asks in that strange tone, the one that always sounds less like a question and more a confirmation. It’s weird, right? It’s weird to be so close to home and yet so far? He knows it’s weird, she can say so without any complaint. He won’t mind, he’s opening the door for her. Othard is such a large place, after all. As they traversed Doma, visited the Steppe, sashayed across the Ruby Sea and beneath it, it almost never occurred to her to think of it. To open that door and peer inside, consider how it felt. 

To remember that just south, just so far and so close, there it was. What was left of it, at least.

“What’s weird?” M’oe pokes his head up from the tall grass of their little hiding place, their sanctuary of the moment. They’d found the place chock full of cherry blossoms and still foggy waters and quiet, and the moment was kind. They had to leave soon, sail back to Kugane, and to Eorzea. To finish what they’d started in Ala Mhigo. He’d been restless since they left the castle, and she didn’t blame him. They were so, so close…He could go home, have a home that was free, for once, finally. He could have what he wanted for so long. 

Khiiral doesn’t really say anything, just shrugs at her, and Ylde returns the favor. M’oe didn’t know a lot of her past, and it had been simple enough to keep it that way for a while. Khiiral never told her secrets to anyone, not even his own love. And she found that...she didn’t like to dim the sunshine. But it was foolish, now, here. The ground sang of home. 

“It’s...strange to be in Othard. On the soil here. That’s all.”

“Strange to be on the soil...? I don’t think I understand.” The cock of his head and the ear wiggle suggests he does have an idea, but he leaves the space open. Her damnable boys and their insight. But he doesn’t know entirely, at least, that isn’t what his expression says, and he’s not nearly as good as falsifying one as some. More of his heart was ever on his sleeve as it was safe in his chest. 

“I was born here. Well... Over and to the south, closer to Dalmasca. But I was born there. I grew up there. I haven’t been this close to home in years. Since right before the Calamity, really.” She eyes Khiiral, curious. Her friend simply nods, arms crossed behind his head as he lounges back against the trunk of a tree. His lance is stabbed into the ground near him, and his eyes are closed, peaceful. It all says that he will let her talk, let her explain, even though he is the better storyteller. Both betrayal and gift in one vision. 

“Wait, really? Why didn’t I know that? You’d think it would have come up on the voyage here!” M’oe almost...pouts, and it’s the funniest sight, such a solid fellow with such a childish expression. He never fails to make her laugh, even in the darkest circumstances, even unintentionally, that cat. 

“Oh, I don’t know. We had very different priorities on the way here, as we do on the way out. It’s not like I never said I was from the Golmore before, M’oe, and you can read a map.” There’s a map in most rooms of their home, in fact, usually choked with pins or notes or scribblings. Their company of adventurers did get around, quite a bit...and it was simply easier to have maps available throughout, in case someone was keen on planning an excursion. The map in her own quarters had a pin in the Golmore, though the map was often covered in half-finished note pages and observations of creatures. 

“Should we…should we go? Visit? Since we’re so close? It wouldn’t take long, would it?” He seems to ponder the idea with an earnestness, combatting for the moment the idea that they were soon to be departing to free his own nation. A heart much too kind.

“Certainly not right now! And, really…not ever, I suppose. We’d die if we did. I’m not welcome, and you definitely aren’t allowed in," She sighs, “and...anyway, it wouldn’t be like I could show you exactly where I grew up. It doesn’t exist anymore. Your home still does. Priorities, remember?” 

It’s a damnably awkward silence that follows, ripe with unspoken question, as Khiiral shuffles nervously.

“Did you have to say it like that?”

“You know I wish I didn’t,” she frowns at her oldest friend, before casting a gentle, tired look at his husband, her dearest spitfire, looking all the more like a kicked kitten.

“I...visiting would be lovely, and I wish I could repay the favor you give so freely when we’re in Ala Mhigo, share it all as we go, breathe it to life and lustrous color. But…  
unfortunately the village of Kol is gone. It’s been gone for a good seven years now, and I would rather not tour it’s remains.” 

“Gone?” Her stalwart Miqo’te friend leans in, curiosity swishing his tail wildly amongst the reeds. The sound is akin to a thwack, but he seems unbothered by it.   
She shrugs, and tilts her head back towards the valley, the Glittering Basin and its mess of abandoned Magitek and imperial technology, left to decay and rust in the water, the soil, surrounded by beasts and ruined earth. 

“Kol used to be on the edge of the Golmore, closest to Dalmasca. The grass wasn’t greener, but the sands were golden, and that was enough that most Viera born in Kol would leave for Dalmasa, choosing exile for freedom over tradition. As it goes, though, Dalmasca fell under Garlean occupation before my siblings and I were born. What has it been, nearly 35 years now? I’m 30, so...” 

She’s taken the lacing out of one side of her skirt and started threading it through her fingers in a strange game of cat’s cradle, contemplating it as she talks so she doesn’t have to look anywhere else.

“Garlemald will never take nor hold the Golmore- this is true. They can’t win when we are in our forests. it’s just...it is our gift, payment in service of our Green. But Kol was close to the edge, and smaller, less prepared, and when they tried, they...they did have some small victories. My mother and my sister both died when I was much too young, caught the ire of some young soldier. Sure, the soldier died too, but what does that really matter in the end? It didn’t to Leri and I. Justice is cold comfort when you’re a child, you know.”

M’oe’s tail has stilled, and his ears press against his head in a clear signal of his concern. His knowing, how this story will go. She doesn’t really have to tell it. He’s lived a near enough version, they’ve seen a near version being in Doma. But she’s started, so she sits against her tree trunk and watches her cherry blossoms fall, winds her ribbon in her hands, and she talks.

Her vision is reddening, and she takes in a deep breath at the hand on her knee, Khiiral’s calming presence. The smoke she blows out dissipates into the fog and her tongue tastes of ash. 

“Magitek can rot a landscape, if it’s left leaking and rusting. We see that here. In Doma, in Gyr Abania, at home. Home, it corrupted the Mist in the forests. The fauna stayed away, and what did stray near was strange, hungry and vicious, just as the flora. The harvest became harder and harder. Keeping it viable became a losing battle. And there was nothing to be done, because nobody knew how to cure it. We had kept the forest hale for so long, but this was...”

A knot, she picks it out with deft fingers, untangles it into a long line, undoing all her work. 

“Which is...why I left. I wanted to find the cure, the answers, I wanted to to fix it, without understanding what it was yet. Accepted exile in exchange for the chance. But I ran into trouble, and more trouble, and the worst sort of trouble and...I suppose, about a few months after Khiiral and I met, I found out that Kol was gone, from a girl I recognized in a tavern. The Rava had found a way to staunch the decay, to keep it from infecting the rest, but Kol…wasn’t saved in time. There was nothing left to save. ”

M’oe looks so, so sadly at her, wide eyes filled with anger and all too familiar sorrow, before he attempts to crush her into a hug. Attempt, as her position doesn’t make it quite easy, and he ends up partially flung across her lap. His unnervingly sturdy arms crush her waist well enough. 

“But, ah…anyway,” She shuffles nervously, wraps her arms around M’oe’s shoulders before holding out a hand to Khiiral, who takes it with an eyeroll and a smile to be pulled into the untidy pile, “I can’t go home, and we can’t visit, but that’s okay, you know? I found a new one. I found a new life, a new calling, new family that I love, and…new causes to fight for. And I still get to ruin a Garlean’s day on a regular basis! It all works out!” 

“You are…terrible at coming up with the bright side of tragedy, you know that?” She hears the laughing, muffled statement from her ribs. M’oe, squeezing ever tighter. 

“And you’re turning into a big softie. Who are you? Where is the Yldegarde that regularly almost catches me on fire for dumb jokes?” Khiiral’s heinous guffaw into her ear is both jarring and welcome.

“There’s a reason I’m not the mouthpiece in our arrangement!”

“Oh Twelve forbid, you could have fooled me.“

“Don’t be an ass!”

“He can’t help it, he has to make up for lack of one.”

“I am wounded, sir, wounded, by my own husband-"


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's a little teasing amongst found family?

“You’re not my dad, Khiiral, you don’t have veto privileges on who I entangle myself with.” Ylde snorts from her perch on the desk, swirling her drink in her hand. 

“Well someone should remind you that you have a brain and shouldn’t just think with your-“ 

“Oh, but papa,” she grins sharply when he recoils from her unceremonious flop onto his lap and comical phrasing, kicking up one leg into the air and throwing her free hand over her eyes dramatically, “I love him!!” 

“You’re a lost cause,” her friend groans, and pats her head absently, “I can’t believe this is how we lose you. To sub-par-“

“It’s absolutely not sub-par, I’ll have you know. I am quite satisfied.”

“Disgusting. If you ever tell me about your sex life again, I’ll stab myself.”

“Don’t do that,” is the yawning reply that comes from M’oe in his patch of sunlight, stretching out from his midday nap, “What a waste of dramatic stabbing. You can only pull that so many times.”

“That’s not true. I’m a pretty good white mage, if you remember. I can stab myself as much as I want!” 

“Not without losing the impact. It’s all about the flair.” The Mi’qote lazily rolls to face them both where they lounge on the futon, propping his head up on one hand. 

“You’re my husband, shouldn’t you support me, and by extension, my efforts to stab myself for drama?” Khiiral has the sweetest sort of smile when he speaks, hands outstretched to his sleepy beloved. M’oe crawls to take it, curling into Khiiral’s other side with a grin, eyes sliding shut once more.

“Our vows didn’t include anything about stabbing. They should have, but they didn’t. So, no,” he yawns again, peppering a kiss to the duskwight’s shoulder, “Plus, I like you best non-perforated.” 

“Well I think I’d make a lovely kebab. I’ve already got the lance-”

“We’ll tell Estinien.” Is the reply in unison from Viera and Mi’qote both, before they startle and laugh. Khiiral lets out a grumble, but shifts, relaxing. 

“Don’t embarrass me in front of my only cool friend!” He groans, mashing his face in his hand.

“Is he even cool, though, or does he just have long hair?” Ylde grins.

“Is it embarrassing you if he already knows what you’re like?” M’oe soothes in return. 

“And we have plenty of cool friends. I can’t believe you’re doing Y’shtola dirty like this.”

“Or Lyse!”

“Lyrit’s cool but more scary cool.” 

“Raubahn would be so hurt!”

“I yield! I yield! Have mercy!” Khiiral all but yelps, tossing his hands up. M'oe and Ylde exchange a single glance before throwing their arms around their affronted duskwight, holding him tight, pressing kisses to his cheeks in time.

"No mercy, no surrenders. Really now, what /would/ Estinien think?" 

The answering groan of defeat could likely be heard all the way back to Ishgard, as could the accompanying laughter.


	8. Filial Fondness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Platonic love amongst found family is my jam.

“Look, I know he’s like? The love of your life, or whatever, but he’s being an absolute-“ Khiiral’s hands gesture out wildly in his usual exuberance, apparently untempered by their bout with Titania and the journey back to the Crystarium. He’s been irritated from the start, and the renewed exposure to their life-threatening occupation and old friends has done nothing to lower his stress levels. Not even exhaustion could stop Khiiral Lumoira from complaining about Thancred Waters, it seemed, and the familiarity of it was almost comforting. That, and he isn’t wrong. The bitterness of anger in her gut agrees with him. 

“He’s not.” The words are out of her mouth before she registers them, really. And there’s nothing to do but shrug, watching the confusion work over her friend’s face.

“...what?”

“He’s not. The love of my life. He knows that too. It’s not a secret.” And he does know. He’s known all along, and never begrudged her for it, as far as she could tell. It has been a long few years for him, though, and his attitude had considerably soured... she hopes he still understands. She had to hope he still understands, even if he’s barely looked at her since their reunion, even if... 

The furrowing of M’oe’s eyebrows has nothing on the slack-jawed expression on Khiiral’s face. The dawning horror of six years spent being tolerable to Thancred Waters, and for what? 

“I do love him. Dearly, deeply, unfortunately. He’s probably it, for me, as much as it matters. That’s still very much a thing, Ral, you don’t need to keel over.” 

Unfortunately this reassurance does nothing to lower the duskwight’s blood pressure, judging by the high-strung line of his shoulders and the grit of his jaw. 

“I’m confused.“ is the slightly miserable murmur of M’oe, with his hands wrapped lightly around his husband’s wrist, coaxing him onto the bench they’ve claimed under the calm night sky, the lights of the Crystarium proper soft and gentle blue. Khiiral sits with a huff, but remains stiff and stubborn. Blue light always casts him like a statue, a depiction of some beleaguered ancient king, while it darkens M’oe, hiding the sparks in his eyes and the shine of his teeth, usually. 

“Thancred Waters is not the love of my life, because that space is taken, and has been for a long time.” Ylde shrugs once more, and leans to prop up her hands on her knees and chin on her hands. 

“Oh, Ylde, I...we never forgot about Haurchefant, really, but we didn’t think-“ 

“No, Oe, two bad guesses. Do you really want to hazard a third?” She can’t help the teasing smile that pricks at her lips, and tries to hide it behind her fingers carefully. The sound of Haurchefant’s name doesn’t sting like it had for so long, but still settles strangely in her gut, like the memory of something warm on an empty stomach. 

“Are you going to make some stupid claim that black magic is your one true love? If you are, let me leave so I can go puke in peace.”

“Khiiral!” M’oe can’t hide the ghost of a grin at his husband’s words even as he chastises the man, shoulder to shoulder and comfortably ensconced in the middle. 

“What? I’m just saying, if she’s gonna be dramatic-“

“You’re both so...stupid, I can’t believe I have to tell you,” she snorts, and leans forward, wraps a single arm around each shoulder, pressing a kiss to each cheek in turn, “Thancred can’t be the ‘love of my life’, because the loves of my life are right here in front of me, sharing the brain power of the average namazu. Like I could ever put anyone before you? You’re the better parts of me. Without you, I’m lost. So, I think that the title of love of my life, must go to you two collectively. Satisfactory?” 

It may be oversight on her part, but she doesn’t actually expect the tears that well up in her dearest friends’ eyes as they latch onto her hug, pulling her would could be considered unbearably close if it were anyone else. Close enough, in fact. Close enough to chase away the chill in her bones and the bright pinpricks at the edges of her vision, to make it all seem...normal. Something like normal. Something like safe, and home, and hopeful. 

They'll be fine, even far from home, far from safe. They have each other, after all. They'll be just fine...


End file.
